"Talk to Me"

Biopics: front-loaded, episodic and overly-serious showcases for one-to-three great performances, usually followed by Academy Awards.

Dewey Hughes (great performance 1: Chiwetel Ejiofor) was raised in the D.C. projects but dreams of being the next Johnny Carson.

Ralph Waldo "Petey" Greene, Jr. (great performance 2: Don Cheadle) also raised in the D.C. projects lets his life run the expected course of armed robbery to prison.

Finding his voice on prison airwaves he talks his way into a spot at Hughes' WOL radio station. Hughes sees the growth of the city's black population and convinces station manager E.G. "Blue Blazes" Sonderling (good performance 1: Martin Sheen) to give the hard-drinking, blunt-talking Greene a chance.

"Talk to Me" focuses primarily on the early years of Greene's career, his sometimes rocky partnership with Hughes, and relationship with Foxy-Brown-esque girlfriend Vernell Watson (great performance 3: Taraji P. Henson).

While all the trappings of biopic are here -- the behind-the-music style rise-abuse of drink-fall story arc, awkward reconciling complete with Petey's cancer-coated early-death-prediction cough -- the film is able to rise above the cliches due to powerful acting and an outta sight, afro-sheened Terence Blanchard supervised soundtrack.

In some ways, "Talk to Me" is also a biopic of 60s-70s America. The film takes place in the adolescence of American history - a time for tumultuous change, deep scars and ultimately deep healing. It was a time when anything was possible, terrible things happened and we did overcome. With all that's happening now, maybe we need a Petey Greene for 2007.